Anthrax scare at State Department

A Capitol mailroom is already contaminated

A postal worker for the US State Department has tested positive for inhalation anthrax - the most dangerous form of the disease, a US official has said.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said that all postal deliveries to the department from a mailroom, in Sterling, Virginia, had been stopped.

Anthrax cases

3 deaths (2 in Washington DC, 1 in Florida)

7 cases inhalation anthrax

7 cases skin anthrax

4 suspected infections

32 exposures

10,000 taking antibiotics on US government advice

He said that it was not known how the employee had been exposed, but that he was in hospital for treatment.

In New York, anthrax was detected on four mail-sorting machines at a processing station that handles millions of parcels a day, the US Postal Service said.

Meanwhile a second NBC employee in New York has been diagnosed with skin anthrax after handling a contaminated letter sent to news anchor Tom Brokaw last month, officials said.

The woman at NBC started showing symptoms of skin anthrax on 28 September and began taking antibiotics on 1 October.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said she was expected to make a full recovery.

Chemically-treated spores

The postal service cannot guarantee the safety of the mail

The new cases came as it was revealed that anthrax spores sent in letters to the US Capitol and media outlets had been coated with a chemical additive so sophisticated that only three countries could have produced them.

The Washington Post, quoting sources close to the ongoing anthrax investigation, said that only the US, Iraq and the former Soviet Union are known to have developed these kind of additives.

The additives allow the anthrax spores to remain suspended in the air for longer, making them far easier to inhale and consequently far more lethal.

Click here for a map of the contaminated buildings

In Washington, two more anthrax-contaminated spots have been discovered in the US Senate building, where a letter containing anthrax spores was opened in the office of the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle.

All congressional office buildings have been closed since the evening of 17 October as tests for anthrax are carried out.

But one office building - Russell - was reopened on Wednesday.

So far the investigation has failed to trace the source of the anthrax or

pinpoint a possible culprit, but identifying the method used to treat the spores may narrow the field.

But President George W Bush has said he "wouldn't put it past" Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks on Washington and New York.

Mounting concerns

A media worker who was in the Senate Hart building has been admitted to hospital for possible inhalation anthrax.

Concerns have been mounting following confirmation that two postal workers from a Washington facility died of the disease, and news that a female postal worker at a New Jersey office is seriously ill with suspected inhalation anthrax.

The cases have indicated that letters containing anthrax do not have to be opened to cause a serious threat and the US Postmaster General John Potter has warned the public to "handle their mail carefully."

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